At the same day, 4 years ago me & my team were already in the process of organising the very first SQLSaturday outside of Northern America – little did we know how much changes would happen in those passed years.
After the first edition we went forward and amplified our event with every single edition until we have reached what should be our current maximum capacity.
Today at this blog I want to announce that we are advancing with full speed towards the newest and the most radical SQLSaturday Portugal 2015 Lisbon Edition.
Do not think about SQLSaturday Portugal as a local event, last year we have had attendees from 9 different countries and this year I am expecting to go well beyond this number.
Every session on the event is delivered in English, no matter if the speaker is local or coming from abroad.
On 16th of May 2015 – we shall organise our 6th edition of SQLSaturday Portugal (4 were in Lisbon & 1 was in Porto) and this time for some serious changes:
We have made an established brand,
we have had some great successes in the past,
we have made some amazing friends who are coming back year after year (Mark Broadbent & Ruben Pertusa are our record holders with 4 events in a row),
we have a very strong competition to get a session accepted (in 2014 we have had 182 sessions submitted for just 7 tracks)
and so …
We are changing everything – the current plan is to have very few tracks but more quality,
more structure to the event (more flow and thoughts interconnecting the content),
more entertainment (haha, like I would share all the details :)),
much more interactions between speakers & attendees (we might even remove space for the speaker preparations),
we don’t want any sponsorship without ideas – we want to collaborate something truly special & unique for each of our sponsors (Be aware the Gold Sponsors are limited),
we shall not accept even 1 session that has nothing unique and was repeatedly presented in the passed years,
we don’t care about speaker’s previous achievements – we want truly interesting content from speakers who truly dedicated to the topic in question,
we will not announce all selected speakers on 10th February (some content shall be revealed later),
some speakers will have their content will spread over 3 hours (that means you might have to work for 3 hours with 15 min break – scary! :)),
Besides free event, we are bringing you 2 unique paid workshops for 14th and 15th of May 2015:
Data Mining Algorithms in SQL Server, Excel, R and Azure ML – by Dejan Sarka
Data mining as the most advanced data analysis technique is gaining popularity. With modern data mining engines, products and packages, like SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), Excel, R, and Azure ML, data mining has become a black box. It is possible to use data mining without knowing how it works. However, not knowing how the algorithms work might lead to many problems, including using the wrong algorithm for a task, misinterpretation of the results, and more. This course explains how the most popular data mining algorithms work, when to use which algorithm, and advantages and drawbacks of each algorithm as well. Demonstrations show the algorithms usage in SQL Server Analysis Services, Excel 2013 using the SQL Server algorithms, R, and Azure ML using the R algorithms.
Mastering Execution Plan Analysis – by Paul White
Expert-level query tuning and performance analysis requires a deep understanding of both the query optimizer and the execution plans it produces.
This full-day workshop begins by covering the design and operation of the SQL Server Query Optimizer in depth. Starting with a clear overview of the basics, the session progresses rapidly to look at the detailed and often subtle behaviours that have real impacts on almost every query you write.
The second part of the workshop starts with an introduction to the Query Execution Engine, looks at query plan operators in detail, and covers the main things you need to check for in execution plans. We then move on to further develop the deep technical knowledge and practical skills you will need to start analyzing execution plans to an expert level.
We still have 1.5 months until the deadline for session submissions, but have already got 90 sessions submitted and a good number of registrations making us believe that we shall hit a new record.